Mental Speed Bumps: The Working Mom Tool No One Teaches You.

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Transcript

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what's up you guys welcome back to the dopamine diaries podcast this is coach kate i just finished my breakfast i've got 40 minutes before i have to hop on a call with my coach and i just finished my workout and during my workout which by the way i did not want to do i did not want to do this workout oh but i got it done i did a 45 minute full body workout and it's always the workouts that you don't want to do i know you guys have heard this from everyone. It's always the workouts that you don't want to do that end up feeling the best. And while that's true, it's less about how the workout makes me feel. And it's more about how it makes me feel from a mentally confident standpoint as I go into my workday as a working mom business owner. And as I go into my week, it's always about like, I can do these really hard things for my health and for my body as cheesy as it sounds. so I can do these really hard things for my career and my business and my clients. So, um, I finished my 45 minute full body lift. It was killer. Um, but as I was lifting, I was thinking about a conversation that I had and I think she's, she is a podcast listener, so she's going to be like, Oh my God, it's me. Um, I was thinking about a conversation that I had with a client that I have been working with one-on-one for a good bit of time. Um, we have experienced some life together. Um, I will never forget just like sidebar. She was one of the very first clients that I practiced on when I went through my very first, um, neuro education training, um, all the way back in 2021. And so her and I were talking last week and she was just, she's a working mom and she's in a very, like, I don't like wanna to classify it as high stress job. It's not that her job is stressful, but she's in a higher up role. So there's pressure and stress that just comes with having a certain level of responsibility within your career. It's the same way that I would argue I feel oftentimes as a business owner. It's like there's a lot of pressure and a lot of stress. Although my job itself, serving clients, coaching clients, educating an HBA, that doesn't feel hard. But the pressure of all of it put together feels hard. So she is in a high stress role where she has a lot of responsibilities. And she was talking about how there was one day, I think it was after work, where she was able to just drive home in silence versus like, you know, pick up kids and do the whole normal routine and basically never have that moment of silence for herself to just think and to like let her brain turn off before she transitioned from work mode to to mom mode. And she mentioned to me, she's like, it just made such a difference. And it made such a difference in how I was showing up at home. It made such a difference in how I was parenting, all of those things. And it got me really thinking about mental speed bumps and essentially buffers, like mental buffers, buffers in the day that we need as working professionals that also mother tiny humans or high school humans or whatever. We need mental buffers. We need speed bumps that give our brain and our body a minute to catch up. While this buffer for her was just a one-off, it made me think about all the other buffers that we typically build within HBA. Here's what I want to explain to you guys, especially if you're a working parent or a business owning mom or even a stay-at-home mom because, man, I was a stay-at-home mom for the first nine months, 10 months of motherhood, and it was hard. It was hard. And sometimes having that moment to just not think, to not be needed, to not have to make a decision, to not be touched, to not be overstimulated, and to just have a minute to let some of that steam off is everything. And we don't always get And I think it's sabotage to assume that we can just go throughout our day to day and just wait for those moments, wait for that random day where we don't have to stop at daycare on the way home and we can have, you know, 30 minutes of silence. That doesn't always happen, right? Or wait for the day where we actually get to go to the bathroom in peace and a child not coming in and asking for, I don't know, a snack for the fifth time while we are just trying to empty our bladder. We can't just wait for these moments to happen and assume that we will get them and then that be the thing that allows us to let some of the steam off. The reality is as mothers, and this is where people want to like give me a little bit of hate for saying this, but like motherhood is overstimulating and it doesn't make you a bad mom to say that and to admit that. In fact, there's going to be a whole nother episode and probably post that I make in the is overstimulating. Separate of what you believe about it, separate of what tools you have, separate of how sacred and perfect and amazing you think motherhood is, motherhood is overstimulating to a woman's body and there is a physiological reason behind that. No matter how much some people want to say, no, it's a blessing. Yes, it is, but it's also overstimulating from a body standpoint. And I will touch on that, like I said, in a We're not building in any type of buffers or what I like to call mental speed bumps throughout our day, throughout our workday, throughout our second workday at home. Once we are out of the office and out of work mode and off of our laptop and fully in mom mode, if we don't have a way to create those mental speed bumps, what happens? We're overstimulated. We're snappy. We're angry. We're frustrated. Our spouses see it. Our kiddos feel it. They start to get overstimulated. They start to get snappy because they're feeding off of us, right? That's what children do. Women, especially working moms, have to be able to build in buffers and have built in mental speed bumps that don't always require a 20 to 30 minute drive home that maybe you happen to get every couple weeks. The problem is nobody is helping working moms figure that out. They're saying, journal, find 20 minutes to do silent breath work. Go ask your husband to watch something while you can go out and like go take a grocery trip by yourself. Not everybody gets to do that. Not everybody gets to do that. And also, why is our only form of relief coming from the silence that maybe we get when we're running an errand? That's not rest. That's just silence on the way to still complete a task. It's performative rest. And that's like the exact thing that working moms struggle with in the first place. Feeling like we have to really earn or suffer for or absolutely die on the sword of needing a moment or asking for a moment to fucking breathe. Why is that the norm? I don't get that, right? But it just really struck me as her and I were talking because I was like, you know, I was like, I love that you got that 20 minutes because I'm sure that like that was everything to just have that moment of silence. I was like, but also how cool is it that you know how to create those mental speed bumps outside of just getting that opportunity to drive by yourself, right? Because one of the things, one of the biggest things that is taught in HBA is actually how to build in those buffers, built-in buffers throughout the day that don't require a 30-minute everything shower where you are not bothered, that don't require a 30-minute drive in silence by yourself, that don't require you having to ask or beg your husband to watch the kids for the day so you can just go for a fucking walk. No, it's just not the reality for everyone, right? And we shouldn't have to ask for those things. We should be given the tools to let off some of that steam and and tackle some of the natural overstimulation that comes with being a woman who is also a mother, we should be given the tools and taught the tools on how to give our body that deep, deep exhale. I like to describe it as like when you learn how to create mental speed bumps, when you learn how to build in your own buffers for your body and your brain, even in the middle of a workday, even in the middle of dinnertime when the kitchen fan is going crazy, the dog is barking, the cat threw up on the rug, your child just shit their pants and your husband is asking where the fucking ketchup is whatever it may be when you learn how to build those things in like that is the equivalent of a tea kettle that is like fucking screaming because it has too much pressure and too much steam in it and you opening up the fucking top and letting the steam off without having to find 30 minutes to go be in a closet by yourself sure can we ask for those moments and are those also helpful helpful helpful absolutely but we can't just bank on getting those everyday because the reality is also this. When you are a working mom, when you are a working professional that also values being a mother at home and being present, your time is limited. Your time is limited. That is the reality. If you work a full-time job and you also parent, your time is limited, period. And the free time that you have isn't going to come every day in the form of a 30-minute drive by yourself or sitting on the couch in silence fucking meditating. It's just not realistic. But that's what we're trying to teach and that's what working moms are being given they're being given plans and tools and protocols and kidless coaches that are saying you just need to have a better morning routine fuck that my morning routine would then have to start at 3 a.m when my child wakes up example today how like it's just not realistic and i think working professionals that also mother need to be taught a better way at handling the overwhelm the overstimulation the noise the being being touched out, the feeling like they just can't get a fucking minute. Nobody should have to live every single day making dinner in a full on rage while forcing a smile to their loved ones because nobody has taught them any other tools to help them manage the stress and the pressure and the overstimulation of it all. Why is that what we're given as women? That's certainly not what I feel like is acceptable. And like I said, that is one of the most like tangible things that you can take from HBA is it gives you the ability to recognize what you're feeling and know what you need to do to let some of that steam off. Let me give you a couple examples because this is just from this morning that I took these screenshots from two women, both of which have done HBA. One of them did HBA and with all of the world events, she literally messaged me the other day. She She messaged me this morning. She's like, man, this is one of those moments where I'm thankful for every single thing that HBA taught me because I know exactly how to recognize the responses that I'm having from what I'm seeing online. And instead of reacting to it, I'm taking the proactive approach to give myself a buffer. So I am still a mom to my kids and I'm not rageful, scared, and then insert name. I'm not going to say her name. HBA taught her that. It taught her how to build confidence. above a buffer the other screenshot that i took this morning says this i felt unsettled quite a bit and social media has been exhausting and triggering what's cool though is i'm able to understand the impulses that have been popping up to try to make myself feel better and rather than caving to really unhelpful coping mechanisms i'm just simply taking space when needed and continuing with my work she's taking internal mental space mind you she's not taking a three-day fucking siesta. No, she doesn't have that. She knows how to take internal space for herself to give her body and her brain what it needs, a moment to fucking exhale, period. She said, in the past, I've given up on work when I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious. It's empowering to see myself still do things, not because I'm forcing it, but because I know how to regulate the ick and get back to it. I feel way more resilient. Thank you for that, and thank you for the hive. This is my exact point. As women, we need to be given tools that are more than just, well, ask for an hour to go be by yourself. We shouldn't have to ask. We shouldn't have to ask. We should be offered. And that's a whole nother conversation for a whole different day. But because we shouldn't have to ask, we should also be equipped with enough tools and enough awareness to be able to take a proactive approach to what we are feeling, to what our overstimulation feels like when it's coming up, how intense it is, and know exactly what to give ourselves to create a fucking buffer and a mental speed bump so we do not carry that shit into our home. Do you know what fucking matters more than anything else in the world? It matters how we mother. And the reality is a lot of the mothers that I talk to, they fucking love their work. I love my work. There is part of me that finds so much fucking joy for helping women do these things. I would be sad. I and my life would feel less to give that up. I fucking love it. But the reality is because I am doing both, my resources and my overstimulation, my overwhelm definitely get impacted. How do I handle that? I know how to take a proactive approach. I know how to give myself in the middle of a busy workday, in the middle of making fucking dinner, in the exactly how to give myself an internal pause, even when my hands, even when my arms, even when my body is still doing things. I feel that pause. I feel that moment of relief. I feel that deep breath inside, and it is enough to take the steam off and allow me to still show up as the woman and the wife and the career and the worker and the coach and the business owner that I want to be. That is exactly what HBA teaches. If you are a working mother, who has a very like high pressure, high stress job and you're trying to navigate how the fuck do I stop being so overstimulated and so overwhelmed all of the time? I love what I do. I love being a mother, but damn, it feels like a lot. I'm holding so much. Yeah, it is a lot. It is a lot. Don't let anybody make you feel like it should be easier than it is. It's not gonna be easier. And I think it's sabotage to assume that we can just make the load of what we carry lighter. I think the better approach is to ask ourselves, how can I build way more resilience? How can I make my arms stronger? How can I make my body stronger so I can actually carry this shit and not drop it every single fucking day because I'm overwhelmed and overstimulated? Learn how to build the buffers. Learn how to build mental speed bumps that can work with you in the middle of your busy day. That way, when you check out of work, when you give all of that energy and all of that initial resilience you have to start the day to your work you still are showing up at home with some resilience and with some bandwidth left over for your family. Because if you're not, there is something that we can do to fix that. And we fix that in HBA. So that is all I have. Bye.